Moneyball

I’m a big football fan and support Leeds Utd. I also follow the Premier League very closely, and my brother is a big fan of Liverpool. Liverpool, this week sacked their manager and Moneyball was trending on Twitter.

It wasn’t Moneyball the film starring Brad Pitt, it was Moneyball the concept. The owner of Liverpool football club, is featured in this film about baseball, and is very keen on the Moneyball concept which was first put into baseball by the Cleveland team managed by Brad Pitt’s Billy Bean.

Football fans in the UK tweeted about Moneyball, and wondered how much the concept had impacted their favourite UK football club. This is how far the method has travelled and impacted different sports.

I love Moneyball the film, it’s funny, interesting and features career best performances by some of the actors, and also features some real baseball scouts and coaches in small parts. It’s also a film about gambling, as the concept was a massive gamble for Billy Bean.

As well as being a film about sport, it’s also a film about the business of sport, much like Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday which looks (in detail) at American Football. I’d bookend Moneyball with Tom Hooper’s The Damned United, about Brian Clough and his 44 days in charge of my own Leeds United. They together would make a great sporting double bill, as both films look at what goes on behind the scenes in sport.

The script is excellent, and features some great, very well written dialogue.

So, 73 films to go…

Matthew Cooper has written for Emmerdale, Eastenders, Hollyoaks and Family Affairs. He was winner of the first ever Lloyds Bank Channel Four Film Challenge and the Oscar Moore Screenplay Prize. His first short film starred a then unknown Ewan McGregor and was picked up by Channel Four when Matthew was 19 years old. He’s been a script writer for hire and filmmaker for hire for over 20 years.